by Scott McEwen
“Get ’em in there,” the president said. “If we’ve been attacked, we need to know now, not a few days from now.”
“I’m afraid there’s more, Mr. President.”
The president’s brow furrowed. “Go ahead.”
“I’ve just been on the phone with General Cruz at Fort Bliss. All indications there are that this was a nuclear event, Mr. President, not seismic and definitely not meteorological. Radiation levels at the base are on the rise, and General Cruz has ordered the base to activate the nuclear defense protocols. I’m requesting permission to order every base in Texas to do the same, sir.”
Feeling suddenly sick to his stomach, the president found himself glad to have taken Tim Hagen’s advice urging him to appoint Couture as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Without Couture’s company in this moment, he would have felt completely rudderless. “Order every base in the country to do the same, General.”
“If I may offer a word of caution?” the general said.
“Of course.”
“I don’t believe a national activation will be necessary at this time, sir. We should definitely put all bases on alert, but to activate the nuclear defense protocols at a national level would almost certainly cause widespread panic among the civilian population.”
“But where there’s one bomb, General,” Tim Hagen interjected, “surely, there could be another.”
Couture seemed not to have heard, his eyes fixed on the president. “Does the order stand, Mr. President?”
The president considered Couture’s assessment of the situation and found the reasoning sound. “No, General. I think you’re probably right. For now, we’ll allow the situation to develop—isn’t that how you people in the military like to put it?”
The general smiled. “Yes, sir.”
“Very well then,” the president said, looking at Hagen. “Make sure the deputy director of DHS alerts the city of El Paso about the radiation levels, so their emergency personnel can take appropriate action.” He cast a disgusted glance at the humiliated Radcliff. “It’s apparently going to be some time before DHS and FEMA can get in there to help them.”
Hagen was busy marking something on the electronic notepad that never seemed to be out of his possession. “I’ll make the call right away, Mr. President.”
“Now, gentlemen,” the president said to all, opening the door to the Oval Office, “I need to see the directors of the FBI, CIA, and the NSA. I want to make sure everyone’s on the same page moving forward. After you, gentlemen.”
The three directors filed past the president into the Oval Office, and everyone else moved off down the corridor—everyone but Couture, Hagen, and a pair of Secret Service agents.
After Hagen finished writing, he slipped the stylus into the side of the notepad and turned to reach for the knob on the Oval Office door.
To his nearly infinite disbelief, the towering Couture reached out and grabbed him by the necktie, shoving him up against the wall, his merciless gray eyes boring into him.
“If you ever contradict me again, I’ll break your goddamn neck! Do you understand me?”
Hagen felt his feet coming off the floor, panic sweeping through him as he looked at the Secret Service agents, who merely stood watching as if made of stone. This was the first time in Hagen’s life that another human being had laid a hand on him in anger, and it was the most unnerving sensation he had ever experienced. “Yes, sir,” he croaked, feeling his bladder threatening to let go.
Couture released him and set off down the hall with a curt nod to the Secret Service men, both of whom nodded back.
Hagen stood straightening his suit, taking the time to regain his composure and to make sure that he hadn’t wet himself. “Thanks a lot for the help,” he said to the lead Secret Service man.
The agent stared back at him, expressionless. “Help with what, Mr. Hagen?”
5
MOROCCO, CASABLANCA,
Rick’s Café
Gil Shannon sat at a table in Rick’s Café drinking a cup of coffee. This was not the same Rick’s Café from the 1942 film classic Casablanca. The movie had not even been shot in Morocco. However, the café was modeled after the café from the Humphrey Bogart film, and since its doors had opened in 2004, it had become one of the city’s main tourist attractions.
The largest city in Morocco, Casablanca proper was home to three and a half million people, catering to many different corporations from all over the world and boasting the largest artificial port in North Africa. It was a modern city that had kept in touch with its cultural past, but it was not without political and religious turmoil. Since 2003, at least seventeen suicide bombers had blown themselves up there, killing more than thirty-five people and injuring well over a hundred. Most of the bombers were known to have been linked with Al Qaeda.
Gil was waiting for a Russian contact named Sergei Zhilov. A former member of the Russian Vysotniki (Rangers), Zhilov was now a freelance operator who prowled the African continent from Casablanca to Mombasa, Kenya, in search of mercenary work. The CIA had employed him shortly after the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, to help root out Islamic terrorists in North Africa—specifically terrorists linked to a group called Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), an extremist organization operating predominantly out of Yemen, though it had originally formed in Saudi Arabia in direct resistance to the al-Saud monarchy (the Saudi royal family). AQAP was known to be the primary force behind the attack on the American mission in Benghazi, during which two former US Navy SEALs, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, had been killed on a rooftop by mortar fire while helping defend American diplomatic personnel.
Gil had come to Casablanca at the behest of SAD (Special Activities Division of the CIA) director Robert Pope to hunt down and kill two AQAP operatives known to be hiding within the city. Though Gil had never known Doherty or Woods, he was a fellow Navy SEAL, and he had taken their deaths personally. So when Bob Pope had offered to bring him out of retirement and put him back into the game for the purpose of eliminating AQAP insurgents, he had been unable to turn down the offer.
Gil’s wife, Marie, had not taken his decision to go back in very well. In fact, she’d more or less kicked him out of the house because of it. She told him he could either turn down Pope’s offer or find another place to live, because she could not go back to worrying about him 24/7 whenever he was not at home.
Gil was sickened by the thought of separation, but he just wasn’t ready to give up the life of an operator, so he had kissed her and left the house, with tears welling in his eyes.
The CIA had not been permitted its own in-house operators since the Cold War, so at Pope’s “suggestion,” Gil was hired by a PMC (private military company) called Obsidian Optio Inc. Obsidian held security contracts with the CIA all over the world, and this made it easy for Gil to move around without drawing attention. Another benefit to being officially employed in the private sector was that he was well paid, even though he did virtually no work for Obsidian itself. In 1989 the United Nations Mercenary Convention strictly forbid governments from contracting of mercenaries; however, countries sidestepped this technicality by never referring to the mercenaries they hired as mercenaries. They were “security specialists.”
Sergei Zhilov entered the café dressed in khaki trousers and a maroon T-shirt. He was a big man, with reddish hair and green eyes, knotted muscles in his neck, shoulders, and arms, and he was sweating like he’d just come from a dead lift competition.
Gil raised a hand to get his attention, and he came to sit at the table.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Gil had blue eyes and sandy blond hair that he kept cut high and tight in military fashion.
Zhilov shook his head. “That I don’t drink,” he remarked in a gravelly voice, resting his arms on the table, the veins in his forearms bulging like power cords beneath the sk
in. “Bad for digestion.”
“More for me then.” Gil took a drink of his coffee and set down the cup. It was a fine white coffee cup bearing the inscription “Rick’s Café.” “So have you found them?”
Zhilov nodded. “They’ve rented a house near the old Medina.” The Medina was the old Arab quarter of the city, full of markets and tourists anxious to haggle with the vendors. “They must have problems with money,” Zhilov added. “The place is a toilet.”
“You’re sure it’s them, though, you’ve seen them?”
Zhilov nodded again, signaling to a waiter for a glass of water by tipping his big hand toward his mouth. “They come and go without worry. They buy food and eat in the street like there is no danger. They’re watchful, but they feel secure. I can see.”
“Are they armed?”
“I think yes.” Zhilov wiped the sweat from his face with his hand. “They wear jackets, and it’s too hot for that, so I think yes.”
“How did you find them?”
Zhilov shrugged. “I ask the Jews. The Jews know everything in this city.”
Gil narrowed his gaze. “What Jews?”
Zhilov thumbed casually over his shoulder, as if the people in question might be standing in the doorway behind him. “Those goddamn guys with Mohave.”
LX Mohave was another American-owned PMC, one that focused primarily on intelligence and cryptographic technologies, and the company was known to hire former Israeli Mossad agents.
Gil’s eyes narrowed. “You were talking with Mohave about my mission?”
“No,” Zhilov said irritably. “Why would I talk to them about you? They don’t care about you. I was talking to them about these goddamn guys you wanted me to find.” He snatched the glass of water from the waiter’s hand as he arrived, gulping it down. “Another,” he said, shoving the glass back into his hand and waving him away.
“Hey, Sergei,” Gil said, “I need to know if Mohave knows about my mission here. It’s extremely important.”
Zhilov leaned into the table, meeting Gil’s gaze. “Listen to me, you goddamn guy. Mohave doesn’t give a tough shit about your mission, okay? You got it? I don’t tell them nothing. These goddamn guys over there, they owe me favors, so I ask them. And I tell you these goddamn Jews, they know everything around here. Don’t ask me how they know, because I don’t care, and I don’t ask. All I care is that they know. See? That’s why your goddamn CIA, they hire me and not some other goddamn guy. They know I know who knows the shit. See what I say?”
Gil chuckled and sat back. “Yeah, I see what you say. Can you show me where they live, these goddamn guys?”
“You bet,” Zhilov said. “But first we eat. I know good place. Then we wait for dark. These goddamn guys over there, they’re watchful right now. They see your face, they gonna run because you look like what you are. Me, I look nothing like what I am. See? I can go anywhere in the daylight, but you, you goddamn guy . . .” He shook his head. “You look like a Yankee killer. They see you, they run. So you trust me. I know Casablanca. I know how to get you close to these goddamn guys. But first we eat.”
Gil sat watching him across the table. “You fought in Chechnya, right?”
Zhilov rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Don’t ask me about Chechnya, Yankee. I don’t want to remember. Those goddamn guys with the Martyrs’ Brigade . . .” He shook his head again. “Salafi fanatics, they make these goddamn guys you’re hunting look like girl who suck penis for a living.” He laughed. “That I tell you for free, you goddamn Yankee. Now, you ready to eat yet or what?”
Gil smiled and stood up from the table. “I got a feelin’ I’m gonna regret it, but yeah, I’m ready.”
Zhilov got to his feet. “Come on. I show you good place for last meal.” He clapped Gil on the back, laughing uproariously as if it were the funniest thing he had ever heard.
Gil smiled without humor, watching the Russian guardedly. “I’m glad we never had to fight you people.”
Zhilov laughed some more. “Me too! You goddamn Yankees still think you playing cowboys and Indians!”
6
MOROCCO, CASABLANCA,
The Old Medina
Abdu Bashwar was a thirty-two-year-old soldier of Allah, and though he had yet to personally kill another human being, he had participated in the attack on the CIA annex in Benghazi as a spotter for the mortar team that bombarded the building. His compatriot Cesar Koutry was a twenty-nine-year-old deserter from the Saudi Arabian army who had spent the last seven years of his life designing bomb vests and other explosive devices for AQAP insurgents.
Koutry’s dream was the total overthrow of the al-Saud monarchy—which was greatly supported by the United States—and to one day return to a Saudi Arabia governed solely by Sharia law. In Koutry’s world, Saudi Arabian oil would be sold only to other Muslim nations, and the profits would belong to the people—not to any so-called royal family.
They had arrived in Casablanca the month before with orders to begin preparations for a renewed insurgency in Morocco. With the recent influx of international businesses, Western influence was growing, and as a result, Morocco was beginning to experience a slight resurgence in both Christianity and Judaism. Though Islam was the official legal religion, the Moroccan constitution did allow for freedom of belief—so long as non-Muslims did not attempt to convert Muslims to their own religions. To do so was considered a crime, but most Christian and Jewish missionaries ignored the law.
AQAP had decided that it was again time to make Westerners less comfortable in Casablanca. The last significant terrorist attack there had taken place in 2007, when two brothers blew themselves up in front of the American Consulate. Things had been comparatively quiet since then, with the brief exception of the Arab Spring protests that took place during 2011 and 2012.
Koutry sat in a beat-up chair surfing through the channels on the television until at last he yawned and tossed aside the remote. “There’s nothing to watch.”
Bashwar sat at the table behind him eating a late supper. “There has to be a soccer game.”
“I’m sick of soccer.” Koutry glanced over his shoulder. “Where is Izaan? The little turd is late.”
“He’s always late,” Bashwar answered through a mouthful of couscous. “This isn’t new.”
“I think we need a new contact. That kid is a little stupid for this kind of work.”
“He’s all we’ve got right now. I’ve already asked for another.”
The door burst open, and sixteen-year-old Izaan barged into the room, causing both men to nearly jump out of their skins. “The big man with red hair!” Izaan blurted. “He’s parked on the street in a black van. He has an American commando with him.”
Koutry jumped up from the chair, looking at Bashwar. “I told you that fat Russian was trouble!”
Bashwar gulped down a glass of water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand; then he took a Czech-made pistol from beneath his shirt and got up from the table. “How do you know it’s an American commando?”
Izaan shrugged. “He looks like one to me.”
“Did they follow you here?”
“No, Bashwar. They were already parked there when I came down the street.”
Bashwar thumbed back the hammer on the CZ-75. “Why didn’t you keep walking instead of letting them see you come in here?”
Izaan became frightened. “What have I done wrong? I only wanted to warn you.”
Koutry stepped over and took the teenager by the arm, patting him down to find a cellular in his back pocket and tossing it to Bashwar. “You could have called to warn us.”
“I didn’t think of it. I’m sorry.”
Bashwar stood thumbing through the call list on Izaan’s phone, checking his messages and phone book for anything suspicious. After a moment, he looked up and said, “Kill him.”
Izaan tried to
jerk his arm free, but Koutry was too fast. He grabbed the kid around the head and gave his neck a vicious twist, breaking his spinal cord with a crunch and letting the body fall to the floor with the forehead thudding against the tile.
“What did you find?” Koutry asked, putting out his hand for the phone.
Bashwar tucked the phone into his pocket. “I didn’t find anything, but this house is obviously compromised, and there’s no way to be sure that fool wasn’t working for the enemy.”
Koutry grew angry. “You had me kill a boy for no reason?”
Bashwar shrugged. “Who else knows we’re in Casablanca? No one. But still there’s a Russian mercenary parked down the street—with an American commando.” He pointed at the body. “How else could that imbecile know he was an American commando? You said yourself he was too stupid for this kind of work.”
Koutry straightened his shirt and stepped over the body, pointing his finger into Bashwar’s face. “Next time, you do your own killing.”
Bashwar pointed the CZ-75 into Koutry’s face with the intention of making some kind of tough guy remark, but Koutry grabbed the weapon from his hand, knocking him backward over the chair and pointing the pistol at him.
“Hear me well,” Koutry said quietly. “Until you’ve learned how to kill a man, you had better never point a gun at me again.”
Bashwar nodded slowly, slightly concerned that Koutry might actually shoot him.
Koutry let down the hammer and tossed the weapon onto the table. “Now we have to deal with the fat Russian and his friend. I think I’ll send them both to the moon.”
7
MOROCCO, CASABLANCA,
The Old Medina
To Gil, the old Medina district looked like something out of a Jason Bourne movie, with its narrow streets and old houses built on top of one another, and all of them looking exactly alike to his eye. They were old stucco homes, most of them constructed around the turn of the twentieth century, before the French arrived to take the country under its “protection.” The street vendors had packed away their wares for the night, and the cobblestone alleys were relatively empty, save for a few parked cars and empty vendor carts.
